Sebastian Vettel continued his dominance of F1 after the mid-season break with a great pole position, beating Hamilton and Webber.
Q1 started with doubts about the weather. In all free practices, rain was the word on everyone's lips, with the track drenched. All the cars out first went out on the intermediate tyres. There was no rain, but the track was very damp. On his 20th anniversary, Michael Schumacher lost grip within in first minutes of Q1, and crashed his car into the barriers. With the track continuously drying, lap times were tumbling, and drivers were always climbing and falling the grid. With the chequered flag out, it was the two Lotus', Vrigins and HRTs joining Michael out. But Heikki Kovalainen pulled out a great lap time to make it through to Q2, pushing out Paul Di Resta.
Q2 started with rain, but as soon as the cars went out, the rain started to decrease. As drivers tried to miss the rain, Adrian Sutil had a moment at the top of Eau Rouge. He goes over the wet kerb, and with limited grip, spins his Force India, and hits the barrier. With debris on the track, the Red Flag came out. This was damaging for Alonso, who was on his out-lap, and sat in the bottom 7. When the green flag came out, it was deja vu, with all the drivers out, the top 17 was always changing. Every driver at some time was in the drop-zone. In the end, the biggest scalp was Jenson Button, dropping out with Buemi, Kobayashi, Barrichello, Sutil & Maldonado. To get through to Q3, Lewis had traffic around the last corner, and touched Maldonado on the exit. Getting through to Q3, he relaxed, when Pastor Maldonado pulled up beside Lewis Hamilton and seemed to swipe across his nose. Whether on purpose or not , it was very suspicious, and will surely go to the stewards.
Q3 started with a dry line, and drivers going out on the soft tyres. Hamilton made it out with damage to the right hand side to his car. Again, times were always dropping. Webber was on provisional pole for most of the session, but his last lap was poor, first he was beaten by Hamilton, but he was followed by a faster Vettel. They beat brilliant drivers from Massa, Rosberg and Alguersuari. Alonso had a very poor Q3, and will start 8th tomorrow ahead of Perez and Petrov.
Grid For Tomorrow's Race
Pos - Driver - Team - Rank
1 - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull - 1
2 - Lewis Hamilton - McLaren - 3
3 - Mark Webber - Red Bull - 2
4 - Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 6
5 - Nico Rosberg - Mercedes - 7
6 - Jaime Algursuari - Toro Rosso - 16
7 - Bruno Senna - Renault - 32
8 - Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 4
9 - Sergio Perez - Sauber - 27
10 - Vitaly Petrov - Renault - 13
11 - Sebastian Buemi - Toro Rosso - 14
12 - Kamui Kobayashi - Sauber - 15
13 - Jenson Button - McLaren - 5
14 - Rubens Barrichello - Williams - 8
15 - Adrian Sutil - Force India - 10
16 - Pastor Maldonado - Williams - 28
17 - Heikki Kovalainen - Lotus - 17
18 - Paul Di Resta - Force India - 23
19 - Jarno Trulli - Lotus - 18
20 - Timo Glock - Virgin - 20
*21 - Jerome D'Ambrosio - Virgin - 31
*22 - Vitantonio Liuzzi - HRT - 22
*23 - Daniel Ricciardo - HRT - 39
24 - Michael Schumacher - Mercedes - 11
*Jerome D'Ambrosio, Vitantonio Liuzzi & Daniel Ricciardo failed to set a time within the 107% rule.
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